The areas also contain mineral sands and heavy minerals with rare elements like titanium, which has an annual output of 220,000 tons, zirconium and cerium, which has annual output of 1,500 tons, and 60,000 hectares of salt fields.
Some sand mines with reserves of more than 100 billion tons have recently been discovered in seabeds near the mainland. Van Hai and Vinh Thuc are famous silica mines with reserves of 7 billion tons and 20,000 tons, respectively. Besides, there is a quartz sandbar that boasts a reserve of almost 9 billion tons in the coastal seabed of northern Quang Ninh province. Later month, Vietnam has identified three areas in the northern and central highlands regions which are most likely to house uranium. The areas include Pia Oach in northern Cao Bang province, Tuyen Lam Lake in central highlands Da Lat city, and Dinh Van in central highlands Lam Dong province.
Uranium reserves in Vietnam are estimated at the medium level in the world. The Vietnam Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources will explore uranium ores at 15 locations nationwide.
Vietnam was actively exploring uranium ores to feed its future nuclear power plants. However, late last year, the country's top legislature decided to scrap its first nuclear power plant project that would have had a capacity of 4,000 megawatts and cost nearly 9 billion U.S. dollars in central Ninh Thuan province.